10 - CAPE GAZETTE, Friday, June 2 - June 8, 1995
Burdette, ViLrment file for seat on Rehoboth Beach board
By Trish Vernon
The race is on for Saturday,
Aug. 12. With the deadline one
day away there are now four can-
didates who have filed for two
seats on the Rehoboth Beach
Board of Commissioners.
Last week at this time only Pat-
ty Derrick and Richard Sargent
had announced their intentions to
seek the posts being vacated by
Warren MacDonald and Dick
Darley. Now Orin F. "Jim" Bur-
dette Jr. and Kenny Vincent have
decided to run for office.
Burdette, age 62, whose perma-
nent residence is in Pinewater
Farms, owns property at 17 State
Road in Rehoboth Beach, which
he frequents regularly and also us-
es as a guest house for his children
and grandchildren.
Retired from the U.S. Postal
Service in Gaithersburg, Md. after
34 years of service, he has also
been a professional barber for 37
years and now owns Rehoboth
Barber Shop at Midway.
He served in the United States
Navy from 1952 to 1956 and be-
longs to a number of organiza-
tions. They include the Rehoboth
Beach Lions Club (he is a past
president, zone chairman and past
deputy district governor, all of-
rices held when he was affiliated
with the club in Maryland) and
former Jaycee. He served on the
Maryland Board of Appeals for
eight years as well.
Burdette also belongs to the
Cape Henlopen Elks Lodge,
Lewes-Rehoboth Moose Lodge,
American Legion Post 28 and Re-
hoboth VFW Post 7447 and
serves on the state Barber and
Cosmetology Board. He has been
a member of the Rehoboth Beach
Homeowners Association since
1983 and is an executive director
of Citizens Association of Re-
hoboth Beach (CARB).
"If l'm elected to the board I
will insist the agenda be adhered
to, with lime limits on each sub-
ject, rather than sit and hassle and
postpone everything," Burdette
said. "I decided to run because I
care for Rehoboth Beach very
much. I'm willing to take criti-
JIM BURDE'UFE
KENNY VINCENT
cism and suggestions from any in-
dividual or organization, but I'm
an independent thinker and won't
be in anyone's pocket."
Burdette believes Rehoboth of-
ficials need to "get back to basics.
I would like to see Rehoboth be a
welcoming city to our visitors,
with a cordial image, because we
depend upon them so much. I
would also like to get the business
people and citizens to work
smoothly together to work for a
better Rehoboth." He would also
like to see small, tasteful signs
erected at the corner of each block
of the commercial district except
Rehoboth Avenue, listing the
businesses on those blocks, which
he believes would foster business
for those merchants.
Noting that they must get down
to "brass tacks" in solving the
parking problem, Burdette said
the city should have a commis-
sioner in charge of the police, as
they do with streets and lights, the
bandstand, etc. "I'm alarmed at
the police officers who are leaving
Rehoboth and I'd like to get to the
bottom of it," be said.
Burdette has been involved in
the recent controversy over re-
naming State Road Veterans
Lane, which he opposes, citing the
expense of property owners in
changing over legal documents.
(That proposal is still in the hands
of the Street and Light Commit-
tee, which has been in the process
of polling property owners on the
road for their reaction.)
Vincent, age 42, is the owner of
the Royal Rose Inn Bed and
Breakfast in the second block of
Baltimore Avenue, which he has
operated for seven years. While
he spends much of his time at the
inn year round, his official resi-
dence is in the Seabreeze develop-
ment between Rehoboth and
Dewey beaches and is therefore
running as a non-resident.
A Delaware native, Vincent is a
graduate of Thomas McKean
High School, with a bachelor's
degree in elementary education
from the University of Delaware
and a master's degree of educa-
tion in administration from Wilm-
ington College. He continues to
pursue his studies, focusing on as-
sistive technology for special edu-
cation and is the technology coor-
dinator for W.T. Chipman Middle
School in the Lake Forest School
DistricL Harrington, where he
teaebes language arts for the sixth
grade.
Vincent serves on the nguage
Arts Council, the Discipline Advi-
sory Committee, is a member of
the FFA and the National Educa-
tion Association/Delaware State
Education Association of Lake
Forest. He is also a member of the
Rehoboth Beach-Dewey Beach
Chamber of Commerce and the
Seabreeze Homeowners Associa-
tion.
Vincent and his wife Cindy
have lived in the resort year round
with their four children for the
past three years, although he has
been coming to Rehoboth since
1975, having worked at the Back
Porch Cafe and managed the Ad
Boat for four seasons.
'Tve been attending several
meetings a year since 1987," Vin-
cent said of the Rehoboth Beach
Board of Commissioners, and he
served on the "Hyde Restaurant
Committee" which instituted new
regulations which govern any
restaurant expansions or use
changes a few years ago.
"Some of the issues I see that
need resolved are parking and, al-
though we have no jurisdiction on
Route One, we need to be vocal
about what is happening out there.
I have guests who tell me they are
appalled by all of the construction
on the highway and there's the
safety factor to consider. I don't
want rapid, unplanned develop-
ment to negatively impact busi-
ness in town," Vincent said. "We
need to steer and guide this city
into the 21st century with the
same, if not more, charm am-
biance."
Vincent believes as a homeown-
er and businessperson he can
serve the community at large.
"We're in the thick of it here on
Baltimore Avenue and I hear the
issues from both sides and can
empathize with their points of
view. Decisions need compro-
mise."
Turning toward parking, he not-
ed that not much attention has
been paid to this problem since
1989, when then-commissioner
Donald Derrickson couldn't get a
second from his peers on a com-
prehensive parking plan which
had been hammered out by a
group of citizens. "We've just got
to take a close look again," he
said.
"Protection of the beach and
boardwalk is of primary impor-
tance and we must do whatever it
takes, even replenishment, if we
want our guests to return. This all
ties into the Long Range Plan and
much of it sounds great. However,
I have deep reservations about the
suggestion to do away with grand-
fathering of nonconforming build-
ings. The Royal Rose is an his-
toric building and if it burned
down, I'd want assurance that I
could duplicate it under a new
law," he said.
"Having first hand knowledge
of what's really going on in Re-
hoboth is an essential and valu-
able tool for a commissioner. I
walked everywhere in town after
midnight Saturday of Memorial
Day Weekend and some things I
expected to be a problem weren't,
while others I would never expect
to be problems were," Vincent
noted.
Vincent.cited the need for more
plainclothes police patrols as a so-
lution to these problems. "I saw
two people urinating and three
cussing up a storm on my walk.
The people who were cussing on
Rehoboth Avenue stopped as the
uniformed police went by and
started back at it as soon as they.
were gone," he said.
The filing deadline for candi-
dates is noon tomorrow, June 3
and the deadline for voter registra-
tion is 4:30 p.m., Friday, June 9.
All those eligible to register
must be at least 18 years of age, a
full-time resident, property owner
or leaseholder of record, and if a
resident non-property owner, hav-
ing lived in the city for six
months.
Absentee ballots may be picked
up in person at City Hall any time
after June 29 and no later than
noon the day before the election.
The Rehoboth Beach Home-
owners Association will give can-
didates a chance to present their
views at their general membership
meeting, slated for 8 p.m., Satur-
day, June 17 at All Saints Parish
Hall.
The Rehoboth Beach-Dewey
Beach Chamber of Commerce
will also host a candidate forum
prior to the election.
Channel Z
Continued from page 1
impression.
"We want to know what hap-
pened over the weekend!" Bertha
said Tuesday night. Mayor Sam
Cooper replied that while he
hadn't had a chance to review the
policy report, he understood the
Puseys called in four complaints
about Channel Z beginning at 2
a.m. and that the business closed
at 2:30 a.m., Sunday morning.
"You're not even close," Ray
told the mayor, with Bertha ex-
claiming that she sat in front of
Channel Z in her car at 4:35 a.m.,
watching people leave the estab-
lishment. "The police came and
said they would take care of it," at
2:30 a.m., she continued, "and
Ray had to call again at 3:30 and
4:30 a.m. Anyone who could
have the audacity to say they
closed at 2:30 a.m. is a liar. It's
not fun to be up all night and
we're not getting police protec-
tion."
Ray went on to note that when
one officer answered his com-
plaint he was told the noise
couldn't be heard until near the
bottom of the steps and not at the
Pusey property line. "That's not
the issue. Why was it open at all?"
he asked. He also said that the po-
lice told him at 2:30 a.m. that
everyone had left the club but a
"hard core" group.
Sgt. Jack Bushey, who accom-
panied Doyle to the meeting, said
the officers didn't hear anything
until inside the building, also dis-
puling the Puseys' argument that
the business was supposed to be
closed anyway. "I thought it [the
ordinance] was still under re-
view." He added that he took the
last call that morning, going up-
stairs, where there was a group of
people playing music, comprised
of employees and the clean up
crew. They exited at 4:25 a.m., he
said, insisting that the officers an-
swering prior complaints couldn't
hear anything outside either the
front or back of the building.
But the Puseys did not swear
out warrants to have those respon-
sible arrested, and, as Busbey ex-
plained, "you have to be cautious
about what is loud and unreason-
able noise," when making such an
alTesL
"Are you telling me that the of-
ricer in my driveway who walked
with me and stood in front of the
steps couldn't hear the sound? He
told me he could hear the sound
from the steps at 3:30 a.m. The
music went off at 3:30 and back
on at 4:30," Ray Pusey reiterated.
The Puseys have a witness to
back up their claims. Joe
Williams, who worked all night
bagging ice behind the Channel Z
building, said there were no police
there at 4:30 a.m. "You could
hear the rock and roll all night. It
• goes on all night every weekend
and you could hear it from
Puseys' house," he said noting
that he didn't see the police pull
up in back in an unmarked car un-
til 5 a.m.
To add insult to injury, the
Puseys maintain that City Manag-
er Greg Ferrese assured them Fri-
day night that the establishment
would close at 2 a.m.
"I said Friday night I would talk
to the police and if there were any
complaints the entertainment
would cease," Ferrese explained,
noting that a complaint about
noise from a restaurant patio after
11 p.m. in the same vicinity was
handled without problems. "The
city solicitor and I discussed the
ordinance and decided if a com-
plaint was received the entertain-
ment should cease, but if there is
no complaint, not to do anything.
We want to make sure they aren't
grandfathered until June 30,"
when the business license must be
renewed, he said.
Continued on page II
